Marshall's First New Year's Eve

When I say his first New Year's Eve, I really mean the first New Year's Eve where Marsh was semi-aware that something was happening.  I never followed up on how our New Year's Eve celebration went after our lovely day at the ER!  We had decided to let Marshall stay up as long as he could.  I was surprised he actually made it to midnight!  Since my roast plans were a bust, we just ordered a couple pizza and ate the chips and salsa for snacks.

We ended up watching a mixture of Nick Jr. and the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit marathon most of the evening.  I know... wild and crazy!!  At 10:00pm we turned it over to Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve and had many conversations about the fact that we had no idea who most of the people were.  I guess that's a sign we're getting old!  Although I thought it was a great touch to have MC Hammer out on stage for us oldies.  I wish I would have had my video camera out because Marshall went crazy during the Gangham Style performance.

A few shots from the evening....

You can obviously see in the background of every shot why we call Marshall "destructor"!  When we got close to midnight, Marshall helped us count down from 10 and shouted "Happy New Year!"

~AKO

TGIF!

Happy first Friday of 2013!  Freddy  has reserve duty so it is just Marsh and me to tear it up this weekend!

What are your weekend plans?

~AKO

2013 Goals

I hope everyone is recovering nicely from your New Year's Eve festivities!  We are trying to get back on our regular schedule tonight.  Marsh has been home from daycare the past two days so, of course, his schedule is all messed up.  But, more importantly, I am going back into our office in Manhattan tomorrow!  Yes, our office has finally reopened since Hurricane Sandy went through. 

We drove through the area on Sunday and it definitely isn't the same.  A lot of stores and restaurants are still boarded up.  There are a lot of generators and commercial dryers still in use.  The PATH trains are still not running between Hoboken and World Trade Center.  There is still a lot of recovery left but things are moving forward.  I'm a little torn about our return to the office tomorrow.  While I cannot wait to get back into an office environment, I'm not thrilled about commuting into the city again.  I've gotten used to being able to sleep in until 6:30 - 7 :00 everyday.  If I need to run an errand, I can do so on my lunch hour and be done in 15 minutes.  Starting tomorrow it is back up at 5:30 for the 1 - 1.5 hour commute into the city...

Today was kind of a lazy day for us.  I didn't take my pain killer last night until after midnight and, as a result, ended up sleeping until almost 10:00 am this morning!  I made a crock pot egg brunch breakfast from a recipe on Pinterest that cooked all night, so all we had to do was spoon it into a bowl and eat.  The recipe was ok, not great, but it was nice to not really have to cook this morning :)  Then I got everything finished up and in the crock pot for the roast that we were supposed to have last night.  I figure I had all the ingredients for it we might as well get it all cooked up!

I did get some organizing and laundry done today, but we pretty much didn't even get our of our pajamas!

I managed to get a shot of Marsh lounging on his new Batman bed from his Aunt Chelle.  He actually fell asleep on it and napped for 2 hours today!  It was the first time we've really been able to get him to nap at home in weeks.

This shot actually turned out ok...  Marsh was running around like a crazy person this evening and I just snapped the photo.  You can't even tell he is running towards me!

Anyway, it is time for all those New Year's resolutions to be posted!  I think I mentioned this last year, but I don't necessarily like call them resolutions.  I like to think of them as goals that are more likely to be completed.  So here is what I'm looking to accomplish in 2013...

1.  Read the bible in its entirety.  I've found a plan on the Internet that helps you read a little bit each week in order to complete the entire book by the end of the year.  I've been wanting to get involved in our local church for a while now and I'm hoping that by starting this goal is a good start for the year.

2.  Project 365.  So I've finally decided to take the plunge and do a Project 365.  You'll be able to see my progress on my Project 365 blog.

3.  Smash Book Journal.  I posted about this a couple days ago.  I recently ready about the Smash Book and thought it would be a fun way to document our year.  I plan for each page to cover 1 week in our lives at a glance.  As I complete pages I'll post them up for everyone to see.  If anyone else is doing or has done a smash book I'd love to see your results!

4.  Complete at least 1 Pinterest project each month.  I discovered the other day that I have pinned over 100 things to my boards on Pinterest.  It is about time I started doing some of them!  A project could consist of something crafty, or might just be a new recipe that we tried.  Either way I'm excited to do some new things!

5.  Get Healthy!  One of my best friends is turning 40 this year and booked us for a cruise to Bermuda for June.  Ahhhhh!!!  That is only 6 months away!!!  So, that being said, I would like to continue my quest to get healthy and active this year.  I've decided to target losing at least 5 lbs per month, which I think is doable.  It wouldn't get me to my goal weight by June, but it would put me in a place where I was comfortable with myself for a cruise.

So there you have it!  I think 5 goals for the year is not too daunting and everything is obtainable.

Have you made any goals for 2013?

~AKO

Happy New Year's Eve!

I had big plans for this years New Year's Eve...  Roast in the crock pot for dinner, holiday lights at the zoo, and yummy snacks to watch the ball drop...

Well, it didn't quite pan out that way.  As I was cutting potatos this morning to throw in the crock pot, I managed to slice my thumb wide open with a paring knife.  We managed to stop the bleeding after about 30 minutes.  Once we assessed the damage after the bleeding stopped, we knew right away it was going to need stitches :(

So we spent 4 hours in the ER today and came out with 5 stitches.  Marshall passed out in the car while we were waiting for my prescription to be filled so we decided just to stay in tonight.  Our wild and crazy evening now includes pizza and possibly an NCIS marathon before we watch the ball drop.

Hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve!

~AKO

Christmas in Review

We didn't do as much as I had wanted as a family this Christmas season due to everything else that was going on, but I definitely wanted to make sure we made it for our town's annual Christmas tree lighting.  It was originally scheduled for December 7th, but due to bad weather was pushed back to December 14th.  The town we live in isn't big.  As a matter of fact, town hall is a very quick 10 minute drive from our house.  The festivities weren't huge, but it had a nice small town feel to it.

Everything took place in front of our town hall.

There was free hot cocoa and cookies for everyone as well as a small petting zoo.  They had two sheep, two goats, and a pony.  Marshall was beside himself excited about the animals!

At the end of the night, they had all the kids count down and lit the town Christmas tree!

Santa showed up to, complete with a police and fire escort!  I didn't get any good photos of that.  Marshall was so excited when Santa showed up we decided to wait in line to try and get a photo with him.  When we finally got to the front of the line, not only had the battery in my camera died, Marshall freaked out and wouldn't go near him!  I ended up with a crappy photo on my phone of Marshall reaching for the sucker they were trying to bribe him with.  Oh well... there's always next year!

Since we were in Michigan the past 2 years (to make up for the previous 2 years we were in NY), we spent Christmas on the East Coast this year.  We offered to host Freddy's family for Christmas this year now that we're in a house that has room for guests and festivities.  They traditionally do family Christmas on Christmas Eve so I spent most of the day and night before trying to get our house ready.  I didn't get everything completed that I wanted, but I guess it was good enough!

Here is what I was able to do in our dining room.  I actually got to use my holiday china and the fancy silverware that we got for a wedding gift.  Our dining room table only seats 6 so with 10 people to feed we had to add our card table.  In the future we hope to get a nicer table set that can expand to feed 10 - 12 people.

 

After dinner we opened presents!  Freddy and I got some gift cards that can be used to purchase things for our new home.  We also got a beautiful ornament from his sister that has our home address and family name on it as our "New Home" ornament.  Marsh, of course, was the center of attention and made out like a bandit!

 

 

I had already decided to not put out Marshall's gifts from us until that evening so that he would have stuff to open on Christmas morning.  Following in the footsteps of my mom, I was up until 3:00 AM wrapping gifts!!  But in the end it was worth it.  I fell asleep on the couch and when Marsh came down the stairs the next morning, I heard him say "Ooooooh.... pretty!"

Marshall doesn't quite get the Santa Clause concept, but he definitely gets how to open presents!  It took like three hours to open everything because he had to play with his new toy as soon as he opened it before he would open the next gift.  There were lots of cars, trucks, and musical instruments added to Marsh's toy collection that morning!

 

 

You can see the carnage :)  While I missed being with my family this year, we had a nice little family Christmas on Christmas morning.  It was followed up with pancakes for lunch and a nice dinner at my friend, Michelle's house.

 

I hope you and your family had a nice holiday and are looking forward to 2013!

 

~AKO



A Project I Just Might Complete!

The Christmas season was very disorganized for me this year.  It all started with Freddy's possible overseas deployment that wrecked havoc on our summer.  While I was preparing and expecting to move into our new house in September alone 4 weeks before the deployment was supposed to begin (Freddy was supposed to be at a training course during our scheduled closing and move), his deployment was cancelled a week before closing.  While we were happy that he didn't have to leave for 12 months, our summer had been pretty much ruined with various pre-deployment training requirements.  To the point where Freddy almost missed Marshall's baptism in August!

While we were settling into our new home, Hurricane Sandy hit at the end of October.  Freddy was deployed out to Long Island for two weeks while Marsh, 4 putties and I did our best to cope with chilly weather and no power.  We were lucky in that we sustained minimum property damage and only lost power for 3 days.  Others around our town were not so lucky.

Oh... and Marsh turned 2 the day after Sandy hit!  Last year we had a huge snow storm on his 1st birthday, which makes me wonder what next year will bring!

Anyway...  we were supposed to have Marsh's birthday party on 11/10, but pushed it back to 11/24 since Freddy had only just been released that same weekend.

So, Thanksgiving hit, then Marsh's birthday party, then all of a sudden it was December 10th and I hadn't even ordered my Christmas cards yet!!!  I finally got our Christmas tree and a few decorations up around the house, but never got around to putting everything up.  We still have a lot of boxes to unpack yet from the move and still trying to figure out where we want everything to live.  I did most of my Christmas shopping online (thanks free shipping from Amazon!!!) but just couldn't get around to getting things organized.

I had missplaced my Erin Condren 2012 Life Planner shortly after Hurricane Sandy and just couldn't get myself organized without it.  I finally found it last week and the first thing I did was write down a task list of everything I still needed to get done.

So, back to the original subject of this post...  I've been thinking a lot over the past couple of days about what I would like to accomplish in 2013.  The usual are on the list...  get fit, get organized, pay down debt, etc.  I usually end up with crafty type things on my list that I never seem to finish, but I think I might have found something that I might actually finish this year!

It is called a Smash Book.  Now, I cannot take credit for coming up with the idea.  I saw it posted on The Young Retiree today and was intrigued by the ability to be inpulsive with it.  I started doing some research on the web to see what was involved and found a whole world of "smashers".  I have an idea on what I want to do and it involves the purchase of this little guy...

Once I iron out all the details, I'll let you in on my plans!  I won't be trading in my Nikon anytime soon, but the Fujifilm INSTAX 210 Instant Photo Camera will allow me to get some shots instantly to add to my book.

Oh... and by the way... tonight is the last full moon of 2012!

~AKO

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas! I don't know about you but Marsh made out like a bandit today!

~AKO

New Technology

So I have finally taken another step into the current century and just acquired an iPad. My company has an internal rewards program and my awesomeness finally earned enough points for one so I figured why not. Not sure how I feel about it yet but it sure makes it easier to check in on things without the need to boot up my computer. Now the I have an iPod and an iPad, my next step is probably going to be an iPhone when I am due an upgrade in February.

Marsh and I spent about an hour playing with the Team UmiZoomi app tonight :)

A picture of my Christmas kitty taken with my iPad...if anyone can give insight on how to resize my photos when posting to a blog via the iPad let me know!

~AKO

Christmas Decor

So... Things have been crazy busy here these days. We are still not able to get into our offices in Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy. We almost got in today but it was cancelled at the last minute.

I can't believe Christmas is two weeks away! I am still slowly getting our decor up. We are not going too crazy this year but you can guarantee Freddy will be up on the roof with lights next year :). Marsh has been doing ok with it. Every once in awhile he will pull off an ornament to look at. Here are some pictures of what we have up so far. We are hosting Christmas this year so expect a highly decorated interior :)

~AKO

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

~AKO